


Downfall is Inevitable

by Shitbrix



Category: Fight Club
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tyler Durden is a Real Person (Fight Club), Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anarchy, Blood, Blood As Lube, Dystopia, Established Relationship, M/M, Narrator is Called Jack, No Aftercare, Post-Canon, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:35:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24979267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shitbrix/pseuds/Shitbrix
Summary: Life as Jack knew it is dead and gone. Now he stands alongside Tyler at the head of a new world, one without organised authority and blocked off from the rest of the planet. He has truly hit bottom. And while he had never felt so perfectly free, he can't find any way to stop Tyler from turning himself into the very thing he swore to destroy for all eternity.With a new opposition on the horizon and something to fight for again, will Tyler once more be Jack's source of protection and salvation. Or will the conflict drive them apart.-A fic that doesn't really have much to do with the original genius behind Fight Club, and is more of a project based on my own personal love for dystopia, anarchy, and shitty romance.
Relationships: Tyler Durden/Narrator
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work on this website, as well as my first attempt at writing NSFW and fanfic. I've had a LOT of experience with my own original characters and storylines however, so hopefully that can act as a foundation.
> 
> The Narrator's name is Jack in this fic, both out of personal preference and ease of reading and writing.
> 
> Updates will likely come slowly; roughly once or twice a month. As I'm a full time student and am working on moving houses at the moment.
> 
> I think that's all. Enjoy the book.

Tyler Durden stood in the grisly, grey-toned shadow at the back of the room. His stern expression made less intimidating than usual by a small glint of amusement hidden behind his eyes. The glowing end of his cigarette moved as he took a step forward into the light cast from above.

Orange Grove had once been a highly exclusive gated community; home to the corrupt CEOs and mega-millionaires of Delaware. The streets had been perfectly smooth, lined with pristine hedges, and populated by the entirely ignorant and disgustingly complacent. The decrepit mansion, currently crowded with blood-covered, adrenaline-fuelled men told an entirely different tale. A smashed chandelier pushed to one corner of the enormous dining room and the pile of what used to be lush, and entirely unused furniture in the other was all that was left to identify the old status of the rubble surrounding the men.

The gaping hole in the high ceiling was casting an angelic light onto Tyler, highlighting his angular face and producing a glowing, grey halo around his short scruffy hair and broad shoulders. The dark brown leather of his shoes stepped gracefully onto the scratched hardwood floor, covering the endless layers of bloodstains. In front of Tyler stood a woman, a little behind her: a man twice her size sat on the floor, recovering consciousness. Around Durden, nobody moved, no one breathed. The young woman stared Tyler in the face; strong, defiant, cock-sure. The steady drip of blood from her bruised knuckles broke the silence before Tyler had the chance.

Tyler's small chuckle ended the stalemate and as if let from the room with the slice of a knife, the tension ebbed away as each of the onlookers found their breath once again. The next step he took was quick, calculated, and measuring; encroaching into the space of the woman, looking her in the eye, a challenge.

The step had been recycled and reused over and over: Jack had seen it play out hundreds of times. The step was almost guaranteed to intimidate and undermine. The sudden loss of personal space had no effect on the woman, she stood her ground, kept her gaze locked to Tyler's, his own amused glare reflected back onto him as the woman saw right through the step for what it was. Tyler's eyebrow shot up as one corner of his mouth edged upwards, and in one sudden move he raised his arm and clamped his hand down roughly onto the woman's shoulder. It was then that the two broke the heated eye contact as if suddenly reappearing into the land of the living the woman took in her surroundings; her gaze scanning the faces of the onlooking crowd.

Jack's focus was stuck on the absent-minded gesture of Tyler's tongue flicking out to wet his lips, the way his neck muscles rippled as his gaze moved over the room, the way his eyes settled on Jack's own. Tyler smiled knowingly. The moment between them was private, separate from the events happening on the outside, sheltered in its own little universe.

The man on the floor stirred a little more, moving his hand up to the side of his head against the already slowing flow of blood prompting the woman to lean down and offer her arm: pulling him up. The process was familiar: there were no enemies here, once someone goes limp the fight is over. After laying a steadying hand over the thick black strap of the woman's sports bra and wiping the blood from his other hand over his chest the two exchanged a nod and parted, going their separate ways, integrating back into the crowd of nameless, faceless men.

Tyler took a drag of his cigarette.

Jack watched the artful movement of his abs, the way his lips stuttered on the exhale.

It was early in the night, scabs were barely forming, blood was still flowing freely from fresh cuts, and several men in the crowd were light on their toes; ready to step forward at Tyler's say so.

"All right, next fight is up," Tyler didn't yell, he could command the room with a whisper if he wanted to. His head turned as he surveyed his eager audience. With eccentric flair, the red end of his cigarette trailing his movement, Tyler pointed at a man toward the middle of the group. "You're it!"

Tyler's smirk as he returned his diminished cigarette to his lips for a final inhale was the only thing that coursed through Jack's mind until the unmistakable sound of fists pummeling flesh drew his brain back to the real world. The fight was standard: simultaneously identical to the thousands of fights that came before it and entirely unique. Fight Club had never changed, it was the most alive that everyone in the room had ever felt and would ever feel, until next week. Fight Club had stayed the coping mechanism the way it had begun.

The world that the men were coping with, however, had changed.

-

The old world, the one with the glistening silver skyscrapers and incessant commercialisation was dead. Jack would never have been able to sweep along the horizon with his eyes the way he could in the new world.

In the distance smoke billowed up into the open sky, sky that stretched on forever now that it wasn't marred by the sharp, cutting edges of corporate offices and garish factories billowing cancer from their iron lungs. The night sky of the new world was a swirling blanket of deep blue and grey, where the stars had been invisible before, they were warped and smudged by the infinite movement of smoke.

Natural smoke.

Smoke made by destruction, by anger, by the uprising of human beings.

Next to him, Tyler's face was also angled upward, illuminated in an eerie blue-grey that highlighted every sharp edge and washed out every scar and graze. A fresh cigarette hung from his lips and the smoke wafted up to join the perpetual cloud that covered the night sky. Tyler's blue eyes caught onto Jack's as he turned his head toward him, making Jack's breath catch in his throat. Tyler took the cigarette from his lips and held it out to Jack, but as his fingers reached out to grasp it Tyler pulled it from his reach with a small noise of disapproval. Trying once more Tyler offered the perfectly rolled cigarette, raising it a little higher this time, and Jack gently wrapped his lips around the paper and inhaled. He locked eyes with Tyler the entire time, delighting in the glimmer of entertainment and... something else, that flashed through them as he did so.

Ahead of them a space monkey cleared his throat, clearly exacerbated by the sudden stop that Jack hadn't even been aware of. He shot the man an acidic glare, resulting in the desired effect of knocking him down a peg. Tyler and Jack hadn't needed to be accompanied, the man had merely stayed behind after the last fight of the night, wrapping his bleeding arm in the corner of the dilapidated mansion while Tyler and Jack had resorted to talking in hushed voices as they dried what was left of the blood with sand from the dead garden outside. The thin, wiry man had already managed to get on Jack's nerves: having interrupted his plans to bait Tyler into pushing him against one of the mansion walls.

Tyler took the cigarette from Jack once more and returned it to his own lips, reaching out with his other arm to roughly grasp at Jack's shoulder and pull him slightly closer to his side. Something twinged in Jacks shoulder muscle; an old, half-healed injury worming its way back into the limelight, despite the sharp stab of pain Jack obeyed the force of the pull.

"You better be about to say something good, asswipe" Tyler's voice was raised slightly to accommodate for the distance, and it immediately made the man freeze up, everything about his posture radiating discomfort and fear. Jack smirked, he'd never stop being envious of Tyler's ability to command, to make his superiority known, he would never stop taking joy from watching the man beside him scare the shit out of anyone around them.

"I... uh... I just, if you wanted to know what we found last week. At the office in the city?" The man, seemingly only half recovered from Tyler's aggravation stammered out his sentence. A week ago Tyler had sent out a small group of the newly indoctrinated space monkeys to investigate an old office building that had suddenly been barricaded and guarded. Small, self-governing groups were no rarity in the new world, but this one was unknown to both Tyler and Jack; and being that they had taken up residence so close to long-standing Space Monkey territory, their secrecy was mildly concerning. The group had been gone for three days, and upon returning their group of six eager men had become four.

Tyler, who was yet to hear the discoveries made by the group, having been preoccupied with cementing the foundations of a new and improved Project Mayhem waved his free hand at the man in a gesture to continue.

"There's a group, a resistance organisation. We tried to get a handle on how many of them were there but... uh, they had good security measures in place, we weren't able to get to a lot of the floors from our access point, and when we tried. Well... uh, we're missing two guys now. I don't know what they did to them, we hightailed it as soon as we were caught. From what we saw they don't like the way you're running things, uh, Sir, they're hoping for law and order. They don't seem to have a plan though... yet."

Tyler's grunt affirmed that he'd heard the man and with another small wave of his hand he sent the man scampering off, down the dark street without so much as a nod in parting. The pair walked on in silence, nothing but their somewhat laboured breathing, their heavy footfalls, and the occasional rustle in the long grass off to the side of the road marred the silence of the cold night. Ahead of them, a small porch light signalled the appearance of the Paper Street House on the horizon. The space monkeys that had once taken over the aged building no longer resided there, having shifted to an abandoned warehouse closer to the city centre after the government had been torn down. The house was left purely to Jack and Tyler, exactly the way that Jack preferred it; and he had expressed as much to Tyler on their departure. The door to the house swung open without resistance, as they crossed the threshold Tyler dropped his arm from Jack's shoulder and Jack dropped the bundle of shirts and cigarette tin into a small pile by the doorway.

Silently he watched as Tyler meddled with the gas bottle and lit the stove. He watched as he moved from the kitchen into the dining room to mess with the pile of blueprints that took up the tabletop. Jack's eyes darted from the chiselled line of the man's jaw to the precise movement of his fingers against the scribbled schematics, up to the determined set of his brow, and settled on the movement of his chapped lips as he mumbled to himself. Jack turned toward the kitchen where the frypan of bacon had begun to heat up and pulled open the door of the fridge, grabbing out two bottles of beer that could have been cooled down more by being left outside than in the old refrigerator.

"You need to drop those off at the warehouse" he stated upon entering the dining room, diverting Tyler's attention from the pages in front of him. "You've turned yourself into a doting businessman: you've got a crease in your forehead, a look of concentration, the whole package." Tyler stood up from the table as Jack handed him the open beer, taking a step into Jack's personal space and gripping his hip harshly.

After taking a swig Tyler's light blue eyes settled onto Jacks. With a low, gruff whisper he caught the entirety of Jack's attention, "Maybe you're right, wouldn't want to burn ourselves out now, would we?" The question was rhetorical and Jack swallowed nervously in response, causing Tyler's gaze to drop to the movement of his adam's apple.

In one swift movement, Tyler attached his lips to the side of Jack's throat and bit down hard. Jack's yelp quickly turned to a sigh as Tyler sucked and licked at the site and moved along his neck, up to his jawline. Jack melted into the attack, relying on the grip Tyler had on his waist to hold him upright as Tyler worked light red bruises all down the side of his neck. As abruptly as he had begun Tyler stopped, drank another large gulp of his beer, smirked, and left the room to attend to the bacon sizzling on the stove.

They ate the bacon straight from the pan in relative silence, finishing their beer and going over the new information that had been handed to them.

"How likely is it that they are actually going to create some sort of large scale, governed area?" Jack queried before taking another bite of terrible meat.

"It's likely that they're young, petulant, shitheads that think the fantastical idea of capitalist democracy will serve them well." Tyler offered his answer as a throwaway comment, an attempt to hide his frustration.

Jack swallowed the final mouthful of his beer and placed the bottle on the side of the stove, he stepped into Tyler's space and placed his hands on his chest, feeling hard muscle and uneven skin beneath his fingers. Angling his head up slightly to catch Tyler's eyes he announced: "You're angry".

With a scoff, Tyler grasped at Jack's waist with both hands and pulled them flush together with one sharp tug. "I'm always angry," he remarked before diving in to kiss Jack hungrily. The movement of their lips was fast-paced and messy, as Jack reached his hands into Tyler's short hair he was pushed up against the inactive stovetop.

The frypan clattered to the tile floor but was paid no mind by the two men, Jack moaned as Tyler plundered his mouth with tongue and gripped his waist harder, determined to leave bruises. Their mouths broke apart to pant for breath and Jack felt himself being manhandled once more, turned around and shuffled to a clear area on the kitchen bench. Tyler's weight pressed against his back and caught his mouth in another aggressive kiss, turning Jack's head sharply to accommodate for the awkward angle. His mouth then moved down to Jack's shoulder blade while Jack quietly moaned and pushed back against him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ||TW||  
> contains blood and rough sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, this one took a while to finish. Battling with my own procrastination and being merely weeks away from graduation has made almost everything in my life but school irrelevant.  
> Beware of the story tags, because this chapter contains actual smut; and not much of it is safe or healthy. Really this is a new experience for me so I'm not really sure how to categorise it.  
> Anyways, this is my first ever time writing NSFW so please let me know what you think.

Some called it the 'Old World'.

Others jokingly referred to it as 'The Before Times'.

To anarchists and militant extremists, it was the 'Pre-Revolutionary Era', chanted as a disgraced and shameful period of humanity with cult-like devotion.

However it was viewed, Jack knew that the further back he travelled in his memories, the more pathetic and miserable he appeared. He had been a shell of a man, a breathing zombie, a drone of the corporations' empire.

After the months of planning and piecing together Project Mayhem, it had been deployed; Tyler had wanted to take out the consumerist control of the state government, had wanted to start a domino effect of destruction and redemption. The night that Tyler's plan succeeded all of the state's debt records were destroyed by hundreds of powerful explosives buried throughout the many stories of the gleaming buildings. That night had signalled the beginning of the end. Project Mayhem had been nothing but alarmingly successful, destroying a few of the controlling overlords of civilisation and making the general public aware of an incoming revolution, the chaos caused by the financial reset could not be repaired in the time that it took the citizens of Delaware to continue in pursuing the anarchy Tyler and the Space Monkeys had given them merely a taste of. The fall of local civilisation was aided by the general public, those who had toed the line their whole lives became poster children to the cause. The population of over 750 000 had unwittingly recreated the premise of Fight Club on a state-wide scale.

With these developments came the promise of total autonomy; and panic was quickly raised across the rest of the United States, prompting an onslaught of armed forces and blind politicians onto the rioting society.

As time passed, the fire that was Delaware grew to become unmanageable, and though the people began to turn toward self-protection and survival the momentum of Project Mayhem and Tyler's own involvement would not be stopped. Authorities changed tactics from fruitlessly attempting to suffocate the uproar and force the state back to order. Militarised troops were ordered to the borders of Delaware; their new goal being to isolate the disruption and quarantine the state infected with freedom. The state that was now flattened from what it used to be, with small slums and communes, and people desperately clinging to what they could have been in the wake of this new world.

With the government's outright abandonment and a newfound sense of complete isolation a new normalcy was unveiled; some lived each day with their personal illusions of glorified importance, living out their fantasies of the apocalypse. Others sunk into the shadows, wanting only to protect what little they still had, clinging to the remnants of a poisoned reality. Many took up the mantra of utter nihilism, took on the understanding that they were nothing but decaying matter, a meaningless organism crammed with thoughts and experiences.

Jack had continued on his personal inwards descent throughout it all, falling and spiralling ever closer to the elusive 'bottom', with Tyler at his side, dragging him down; promising him that in his plummet he would find a pure sense of freedom. After the dust had settled the Space Monkeys had secured unofficial territory: using several rusting and beaten down warehouses in the abandoned industrial area to house weaponry and station the unnamed men. Life had resumed for them all, having had no ties to the way things used to be. There had been little celebration at the successful outcome of Project Mayhem; not publicly anyway.

Jack still remembered the night the troops had withdrawn, the private celebration between him and Tyler, held it in his mind secretly, unwilling to allow it to become corrupted by outside opinion. He expected Tyler knew of this infatuation; Tyler always had known him well, he expected Tyler would bring up the way he was holding on, use it to twist and pull him in even deeper. Jack would welcome it when he did.

There had been new recruits to Tyler's men after the new way of life was discovered: some who had stumbled their way into the group, others who had hunted them down and sought them out in recognition that it was them with the power to spark all of this in the first place. One or two Space Monkeys had walked out - disappeared - many more had died; memorialized by name in memory but never immortalised in writing.

In the new world, people reigned supreme of their own lives, and though many continued to live in their own world of glorified self-improvement, they were free to do so without the shackles of a corrupted system barking at their heels. Te new world presented unique challenges, new corruption to scorn; however this time it wasn't in the manufactured way it always had been. The hatred and corruption of the new world was natural, an animal thirst for power; not over assets or a government system, but merely the hunger to be the best, to overpower.

-

The noise of movement wrestled Jack from his sleep, the soft sound of denim shifting against itself as Tyler sat up on the moth-eaten mattress beside him. Opening his eyes; he was acquainted with unfiltered, late morning sun glaring onto his face and the slim, chiselled muscle of Tyler's back. The sunlight framed his shape, casting a dreamy silhouette around the strong shoulder blades and perfect waist that was close enough to touch.

And touch he did, Jack reached out with calloused hands; running them feather-light and teasing down Tyler's side, caressing with a firmer palm as he moved around to the tanned line of his back. Tyler stopped his distracted movement upon feeling the light touch, slowly twisting his neck back towards Jack. Those ruined lips; cracked and split from thrown fists and the occasional bite of Jack's teeth, curved into a soft smile but the thirst behind his eyes betrayed the man as he raked his gaze down Jack's exposed torso, still splayed out atop the mattress.

In one fluid motion, they moved together; Jack rolling onto his back and simultaneously pulling Tyler closer by the firm grasp on his shoulders; the sitting man pulled his knees up on the mattress to give himself height over Jack's sprawled form, sitting back on his powerful haunches as the touches along his sides and back became more insistent, hungrier. Jack's hand travelled back down from his shoulder blade, running down the outside of Tyler's pec and across the edge of his washboard stomach, settling for a particularly firm squeeze at his hip. With the prompting of the solid grasp Tyler moved above Jack properly; slotting his knees outside of the pair on the mattress and caging Jack in beneath him. The man writhed slightly on his back, aching for anything Tyler would deign to give him. They paused for an instant, their warm breathing mingling in the golden light cast from the grimy window. Tyler broke through the haze of the moment, the man trapped beneath let out a contented noise as he moved forward over him and rested his weight on his arms either side of Jack's head.

Tyler moved his head down towards him, thwarting Jack's expectation of a satisfying, hungry kiss by diverting at the last moment to the side; attaching his lips to Jack's jaw. In an automatic reaction, he tilted his head to give Tyler more access to his face and neck - an opening he quickly took advantage of. The chapped lips brushed along stubble, breathing hot and wet down the receptive skin, taking time to leave deepening pink marks in a trail from jawline to collarbone.

When he resurfaced the two men locked their eyes for a moment before Tyler's head dipped back down. This time Jack was awarded a burning kiss that sated every angry desire and howling beast inside him in the time that it lasted. The bruising force of the kiss released slightly as Tyler focused his efforts on dragging teeth across Jack's bottom lip, biting down harshly before swallowing the whimper he was granted in another wicked kiss. Their tongues worked together, Jack's yielding to the onslaught and revelling in the sharp taste of blood that flooded his senses.  
Still attached at the mouth, Jack felt a heavy hand rest at his hip, half exposed by the blankets bunching up from their movement. He felt an unnecessarily forceful squeeze, a bruising grip, and gasped around Tyler's tongue. Tyler's hand moved on from his hip, leaving bright red marks over the top of small scars and fading yellow bruises, the heavy hand dragged the threadbare blankets further down the bed as it trailed down from Jack's hip.

They broke apart panting before Jack swiped his tongue across his bottom lip; tasting more of the blood dripping from him in a light but steady flow. Tyler growled as Jack pulled his red-covered tongue back into his mouth and grinned at him, he threaded his fingers into the barely-there scruff on the back of Jack's neck and forcefully pulled his head back to the pillow. Lifting his other hand off of Jack's knee and moving it across to press at his abdomen, fingertips ghosting across where Jack's waistband would lie if he weren't stark naked and sprawled across the mattress, one leg covered by a thin sheet.

Small pants escaped from Jack's lips, sweeping across the dried blood as Tyler's hand moved further south at a snail's pace. The other hand continued to pull at Jack's shaved hair with violent force. He couldn't see the languid pace at which Tyler's hand travelled, only the shit-eating grin and cruelly teasing stare of the man above him boring down onto him. The shadows cast through the shattered and grimy window danced along the roof above them, mirroring the writhing of the man on the bed below.

The slow torture ceased as Jack felt Tyler's rough and calloused hand grasp the base of his already hard dick, nestled in his light and wiry pubes that framed the well-used member, the relief didn't last for long as the new movement along his shaft continued at a slow and teasing rate, the same way Tyler's touch had just graced his tight stomach. Tyler's other hand released his head and instead pushed it into the pillow with a finger to the chin; giving Jack a clear message to remain frozen, the hand moved to brush the thumb along his bottom lip, pulling the skin down and opening the cut that had dried over. Fresh blood sluggishly poured from the four little teeth wounds and Tyler swiftly swiped along them, gathering the blood on the pad and side of his thumb; before moving the hand down to join his other. The mild warmth of his own blood was suddenly pressed at Jack's rim, Tyler taking no time before breaching the tight ring of muscle with his thumb; with nothing but the poor lubrication of blood and last night's mess to ease the entry.

Now Jack let a cry spill from his lips as the wide digit stretched him open to the first knuckle. Tyler chose that moment to grip his dick harder, applying friction and increasing his speed simultaneously. The thumb inside of Jack never stopped moving, burying down to the second knuckle once, twice, three times before it was replaced by two slimmer fingers; both still completely dry.

Tyler's ministrations were immediately overwhelming and Jack couldn't control the small noises that were punched out from his chest. Light "ah ah ah"s and low whines as the two hands below him continued to tease him at a pace that would never lead to climax, keeping him in this limbo forever. Two fingers became three, then swiftly became four and the stretch burned around Jacks hole, the pinprick feeling seeming to travel all the way down his inner thighs. Jack was losing himself in the maddening sensation, feeling the fog creep through his mind as Tyler brushed along his prostate and kept up the steady movement along his dick; the tip now weeping white, dripping down to ease the path of Tyler's scarred hand.

The sudden loss of all four fingers wrenched Jack from his spot high up in the clouds, he crashed down to earth as Tyler's hand on his dick slowed with the removal. A long whine spilled from his mouth that was still hanging open until Tyler silenced the complaint with merely a condescending chuckle. Tyler was fast to act, making Jack's breath catch in his throat as a blunt force pressed up against his loose and abused rim before pushing in smoothly and swiftly.

Tyler was large, his dick mirroring the perfection that was his entire being and Jack took it all. Jack remembered to breathe as Tyler buried himself in his ass, taking in shallow breaths while staring into the face above him, swathed in the same golden aura of light pouring in from the window. It was then that Tyler moved, pulling all the way out and slamming back home harshly.

The frenzied movement sent Jack spinning a thousand miles away, losing himself to the stinging pain and blunt, rising pleasure. His vision zeroed in on the teasing glee in Tyler's eyes over him as he carried out the animalistic fucking, filling the room with soft slaps as his hips carried on at their punishing velocity. Jack's dick bounced forgotten between the rutting bodies and his mouth flooded the air with curses and whimpers, whines and shouts; all completely instinctual as Jack's eyes had glazed over.

Tyler dropped his head to look at where they were joined, speeding his movements to an impossible pace. Each thrust pushed Jack into the pillows below him, slammed the metal bedframe into the chipping paint on the brick wall behind them.

Jack distantly felt himself grow close, the physicality a far off world to where he was swimming in his mind. Until Tyler buried himself with a force unmatched, hurtling Jack into a crescendo; legs shaking and clenching around the thick and pulsing heat inside of him. Tyler reacted to his tightening channel by forcing in one final time, hips stuttering as he stayed embedded in Jack; groaning under his breath as he came.

Jack drifted back to his own mind, feeling the sting as Tyler pulled out of him, noticing the itch of come drying on his stomach, registering Tyler's pinch to his inner thigh as the other man wiped himself with a stray T-shirt before getting dressed

"Come on, get up" Tyler was over him now, perfect shoulders hidden by an unzipped leather jacket that hung down towards him.  
Tyler threw him a towel as he pulled himself into a sitting position on the bed, wincing at the demand on his tender muscles. Jack wiped himself clean and forced his way through pulling on jeans and a ratty grey jumper.

As the pair left the bedroom onto the creaky, water-damaged floorboards of the hallway, Tyler spun Jack from behind; pressing the shorter man's back into the plaster wall. He pulled the collar of the jumper away from Jack's neck to admire the deep purple bruises blooming along the expanse of marred skin. Quickly leaning in to nip at a prominent one by Jack's collarbone before spinning away to saunter down the hall, lighting a cigarette between his teeth and leaving Jack pressed to the wall outside the doorway to their bedroom.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ||TW||  
> some gun stuff, some death stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I smashed this chapter out in two days after leaving this for so long to focus on school. So hopefully it's not riddled with errors.

Jack gingerly carried the two mugs across the small kitchen, dusty floorboards beneath his feet groaning in defiance of his movement. Black coffee sloshed around in the ceramic, weak and bitter, and teasing the chips and cracks along the lip of the mugs. Like everything inside the crumbling building the mugs were neglected and on the brink of falling apart. Steam danced upward from Jack's hands as he passed through an archway carved into the wood and plaster wall: he entered into the living room gingerly, ensuring that he would not be run over by any of the bodies bustling by in the small enclosed space.

The room resembled that of a control station in an old disaster movie: every man around him moved with a single-minded determination, delegated to their tasks and content with the information they had been given. There was no rush to the actions but an air of efficiency hung in above their heads. Some of the space monkeys stood in small groups, heads bent and huddle together over their quiet conversations; other worked in teams of two or four carrying crates and cardboard boxes from the front entryway to where Tyler stood at the head of the modest wooden dining table. He spoke to the men surrounding him with the tone and posture of a man that knew they all deferred to him. His hands moved surely across a large page of blueprints; directing the rapt attention of the small group around the table head.

With an expectant nod Jack broke through the single-lined wall of men surrounding Tyler, they parted with respect and ease for Jack to make his way to Tyler's side and hand off the mug of coffee that would act as more of a punch in the face than an enjoyable drink. Tyler barely acknowledged Jack's presence before bringing the mug to his lips and continuing to broadcast instruction and information.

Jack carefully studied Tyler's face through his preoccupation, a crease broke up his forehead and his clear blue eyes were shadowed by darkening skin that spoke of stressful nights and hours spent staring at a desk under pitiful lamplight. Tyler Durden was changing, subtly, it was only Jack who would notice the minute change in posture from a perpetually comfortable and casual strength to a stiffer hold on his shoulders and spine held up with rigidity rather than power. Jack wanted to offer himself as consolation, comfort, escape; wanted to run his hands across the sinuous muscle of Tyler's shoulders and grip the firm back, leave light red lines down the length of his torso from his blunt fingernails.

Jack was completely and irreversibly dedicated to Tyler Durden, the man in front of him who radiated determination and sheer success; the man that unofficially ruled over this land of anarchy, who was the force that worked and ruled behind the scenes to ensure the free will and chaotic glory of Delaware's identity remained. The responsibility of controlling a major territory of warehouses and commanding his anonymous army weighed on his shoulders with a weight that would bow the backs of lesser men. 

Breaking from his analysis, Jack swept his gaze across the pile of blueprints and hastily scrawled documents that were spread across the tabletop. He followed the line of Tyler's arm to where his finger traced along a diagram of an explosive device, Tyler was ordering the space monkeys surrounding him in a perfect circle to dedicate a singular warehouse to the production and storage of the device. Machinery and components for high-level weaponry was abundant across Delaware; a lasting reminder of the people's overrun of military presence and suffocating nature of the old modern world. Despite the rush that had ensued to collect the scrap metal it still littered the streets, spare car bonnets and industrial beams held up the cloth rooves of peoples houses and Jack had seen the track from a tank called in by the military in the final days of resistance being used as a garden bed. Materials were everywhere and Tyler Durden happened to have created himself a position in which he could easily utilise them.

Jack took a sip of his coffee and turned away from the table: the men once again parted in respect for Jack and allowed to exit from the small grouping of men. The bitterness of the coffee was acrid on his tongue but the heat and strength of the brew from the rusting saucepan on the stove served it's purpose in completely pulling any dragging tiredness and lingering pains from his body. Coffee was a luxury and one that Jack was slowly coming to rely upon.

Jack was dumping both used coffee cups on the grimy countertop when the sound of rushed footsteps echoed from the front of the house, the sounds of feet slapping bitumen, then concrete, then hollow wooden boards, followed by a rap of knuckles at the door; an attempt at being orderly and professional overshadowed by the frantic nature of the commotion on the other side of the wooden door. All eyes in the room had turned to face the entryway and take in the sight of the front porch as the man closest to the door pulled it open, hinges screeching as it swung inward.

The knocking had come from a young man; his face adorned with the greying remnants of a black eye and a split lip, his black shirt and trousers were dishevelled but no more so than everyone that stood in the living room and milled through the house. The man stood with his hand raised for only a moment before stepping to the side; clearly not the subject of interest. A little further back from the doorway stood two more men; outfitted similarly to the first. The taller of the two was supporting the other with an arm around the waist and pulling him along; assistance that the shorter one clearly needed in his current state, the arm he had wrapped around the other man's neck dragged the pair downward betraying his exhaustion.

After a few moments of confused recognition, Jack came to the realisation that the man on the porch was one of the two missing casualties from the scouting mission Tyler had sent out.

He looked like hell.

A group of space monkeys pulled the two men into the house and closed the door; glancing around to ensure no one was watching from afar or making their way down Paper Street. They landed the missing man on a dining room chair, facing Tyler who hadn't yet moved from the far side of the table.

He was bleeding from the side of his head; the gash deep and sluggishly saturating his short blonde hair. His face was painted with grazes and a few cuts and he held his arm close to his chest, even so, it was clearly resting in an unnatural position. His black shirt was torn right down the centre, a bruised and battered chest peeking out from underneath, the hairless and even skin hinting at how young the man really was. He slumped in the rickety kitchen chair as Tyler took a step toward him, heaving a shaky breath and reaching his good arm up to rub at his bruised face; wincing at his own movements.

The room was dead silent.

Tyler came to a dead stop in front of the man, leaning his weight backward on the edge of the wooden table, hands resting either side of his hips and a completely unintelligible expression plastered over his features. There was tension in his frame and his hands clamped down on the wood ever so slightly.

"Clear out"

The words were said with no more than a conversational tone but the entirety of the room jumped from their stupefied inaction. Steadily streaming out the doorways and leaving the living room bereft of its previous clockwork efficiency.

Tyler leant forward and placed a hooked finger under the man's... the young man's chin, lifting his slumped head and analysing the damage across his face.

Without uttering a word, merely letting out a soft breath that could be a sigh or laugh, Tyler dropped the chin and stepped away from the chair, taking sure strides past Jack and into the kitchen where he filled a yellowed glass with the slow running water from the tap, before walking back to his position in front of the man. All without saying a word.

Something instinctual made Jack move to stand by Tyler's side as he once again grasped the man's chin and raised his head. The thought that Tyler was about to pour the water straight between the man's lips caused a stir in Jack's stomach, but instead, Tyler placed the glass into the ma's good hand and gestured for him to drink.

Before the man had completely raised the glass, he froze, the sound of a handgun chambering a round broke the silent tension in the room. The barrel was pointed between the man's eyebrows, held surely in Tyler's calloused hand.

"What do you know?"

Tyler's question was laced with suspicion and his tone commanded a complete answer.

The young man squirmed in his seat, eyes fixed down the endless barrel locked onto his forehead, apprehensively he took a sip of water and heaved another deep breath; likely feeling a rattle at the attempt.

"We thought they were a self-governing group, some sort of organisation, that - that's what you said"

To Jack's surprise, the man spoke surely enough, with only a small stutter. Much better than Jack had performed the first time he'd looked past the barrel of a gun to see Tyler's steady face behind it.

"It's so much more than that, so much fucking more..." the man trailed off momentarily, "they have plans, structure, fucking mercenaries dedicated to the cause."

Tyler moved his gaze from the man to meet Jack's eyes, without shifting the gun. The man stuttered into silence before uttering his closing point.

"They're a revolution, goddammit, and they know what they're fucking doing"

-

Jack and Tyler sat alone in the living room, the light outside fading. Two hours beforehand Tyler had lowered the gun and demanded that the man recount the entire ordeal, tossing a pen and a pile of paper into Jack's arms before sauntering from the room in an angered rush.

The man had been caught in the group's hurried escape from the old corporate building, alongside the other missing space monkey. The two had been held, taunted, questioned, and tortured; beaten when they wouldn't let loose any of their information on Tyler or the space monkeys. They had been left in a secure room after laughing through the punches and spitting the blood from between their teeth.

The other man had at one point slumped into a corner and not moved, had died from the wounds, had starved from the impact of fasting on an already rationed diet due to the absence of any real food.

And now Jack and Tyler sat, reading over the scrawled notes that Jack had taken. It was clear that the group had not intended for the man to escape; had not intended to let loose a victim that knew so many of the plans that had been used to taunt him. This knowledge would impact the tie frame that the space monkey had gleaned from the group; now that they knew their information was out in the world they would be scrambling to accelerate their schedule, to keep the element of surprise somewhat intact.

The group knew that Tyler was the one that was really running things, the one keeping things in a state of autonomous limbo. They didn't know who he was, they didn't know the extent to which Tyler had manufactured this world; no one could. But they were coming for him, if they eliminated Tyler they could step forward as the new leaders of this world.

It was like an assassination but no one would be aware of its earth-shattering implications.

Though no one knew who Tyler was, how much he controlled, space monkey territory was a well known unwritten law of the land. People knew about the men in black clothing that patrolled its area, people knew about the industrial warehouses and converted corporate buildings that were frequented by even more of these men. The group planned to target the territory, to take over one of Tyler's well-stocked warehouses and establish their power.

Neither Jack nor Tyler could decipher which warehouse was going to be hit. They had poured over the details of the man's testimony for far too long, sat on the hard wooden chairs reading over Jack's barely legible handwriting until their legs felt numb and their spines ached for movement. Jack hadn't dedicated himself to something this much since he had waded his days through his job at the car insurance company.

He hit the table, palms down, with more force than necessary and stood from his chair.

"We're done for the day Tyler." he groused, moving onto his toes and reaching upward to stretch out his back. "Get up."

Jack landed a hand on Tyler's shoulder and basically pulled him from his sitting position until Tyler continued with the momentum and moved them backward. Jack's back hit the wall with a soft thump and Tyler's strong arms caged him in on either side, a growl near his ear, teeth lightly traced down his neck.

"And since when do you make the rules, you trying to be a big man all of a sudden?"

Jack melted against the wall in deference to Tyler. Everyone deferred to Tyler's command, but no one else did so like Jack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think. This is my first fic since I was like twelve.


End file.
